The Weight of Us
by Rhianna-Aurora
Summary: CS AU (sort of). A what-if scenario featuring an angel and the sailor-turned-pirate she's sworn to protect. One-shot, standalone, told like a fairytale.


**A/N: IDK what this is, really. Heavily inspired by Plato's Symposium on soulmates and just kind of a what-if sort of headcanon. AU, obviously, but also kind of not? It could easily go into something longer, and more complex, but it's a standalone, and it's just something I was inspired to write, so I did. I hope you like it.**_  
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_The scream of a soul is the most shattering sound in all of existence, and that is the very reason that mere mortals never hear it. There are however, the few who do, and for them, it is the sound of failure._

_For the one they called Cisne ... it was the sound that would change her, forever ..._

Sailors called them _sirens_. Land-dwellers had many names for. Nymphs. _Angels_. Spirits, shadows, demons, the fae, the Sidhe ... those who visited in dreams. There were myths about them everywhere, and no one had got it quite right yet.

It didn't matter what name they called them, they existed, everywhere, never seen but often felt. Some were with their mortals from birth onward, they were the guardians, the ones meant to protect and watch over until they reached their soul purpose.

Cisne was one of these, born of sea foam and ocean air the precise moment _he_ had come into the world. She had been told by the seer that she wouldn't have an easy time of it with him, but she knew that whatever happened, she would not fail.

But no one had told her, the agony of being a mere spectator of a life that you wished nothing more than to be a _part_ of. They were not meant to ever intersect, never meant to be together ... the most she could do was speak to him in dreams, a whisper that he'd barely remember upon waking.

But he _did_ remember. He would speak to her, like an old friend, and though she couldn't answer him directly, she knew he knew, by the way the breeze would ruffle his hair, the way he would smile a bit to himself and hum a few bars of the ancient songs she'd whispered when he'd been younger, sound asleep.

He knew her, and she knew him, but it wasn't enough. And no one had prepared her for the sheer pain _she_ would feel, on his behalf, the moment his brother had died. She had broken the rules then, coming to him in what he assumed was a grief-induced hallucination, a blur of white and gold and sea-colored eyes. She knew he could barely see her, that she was breaking all manner of rules by just _being here_ at all ... but she couldn't leave him alone on this night.

He hadn't been happy about her being there, though. "Why didn't you save him?" he had railed at her, bitterly angry and, for the first time in his life, _drunk_, and she couldn't even blame him. All she wanted was to _hold him_, but she couldn't.

"Because I'm not here for him," she had said, knowing it was far too simple an answer, and not the one he wanted to hear.

"Then what bloody good _are you_?" he had snarled, and chucked the bottle he was holding at her blurry form ... she disappeared before it had a chance to connect, and she hadn't tried, again, to contact him like that.

He was right after all. What good _was_ she? If she was meant to protect him, shouldn't it be from all of these things that might hurt him?

She'd gone to the seer then. "Surely there is something that can be done? This is too cruel a fate ... "

The seer had merely shaken her head, sighing heavily, as though she'd seen this far too many times. And Cisne knew that she had ... she was not the first of her kind to become far too invested in the mortal she was charged with. No one ever knew what happened to the others, but Cisne could only assume it was something best left unspoken.

"We do not change fate," the seer said, firmly but not unkindly. "We merely watch and do our best to _guide_. That is your job. No more, and no less. What has happened here was meant to be, and everything that happens after cannot be changed. He was born under the sign of War, my daughter, following the path of Grief. His life was never meant to be an easy one."

"Then what good are we?" she had asked, echoing his statement from before.

"We are the _only_ good," the seer had said, a reiteration of words she had spoken to Cisne before. She cast her stones then, looking down when they landed, reading the carvings that only _she_ could interpret. "His lifeline is extremely long ... longer, even, than _yours_."

Cisne blinked at that. "How is that ... possible?" she asked. She was _immortal_. And he was just a man.

"I have sought that answer since the moment you came to us," the seer said, "and I've come up with naught."

But there was something she wasn't saying. Cisne could sense it. One of her gifts was knowing when someone was being dishonest, and the seer was not immune to it. She'd seen this before, the seer had, and Cisne knew it. Someone else among her kind had been outlived by their charge.

"Curious, you know, that the stones named you Cisne - you were not born under the sign of the Swan," the seer went on, but Cisne didn't understand.

She didn't go back to him again, but she aided the wind that guided his ship, she whispered to him when she knew he was so deep in his despair and drink that he wouldn't remember she'd ever been there. She was with him every step, watching his descent, from man of honor, to pirate, powerless to do anything to stop it, and knowing that she could not change his fate.

_Jealousy_ was a mortal emotion, the seer would tell her, with no small amount of disdain, several years later when she had gone, again, seeking advice. He had met a woman in a tavern, and in Cisne's eyes, he was being very much used.

"I'm meant to _protect_ him, though," she had protested at the seer's scoffing. "Shouldn't I be protecting him from things like ... like _that_?"

"From _love_?" the seer had asked her, arching a brow. "No, my daughter, that is _not_ what you are to protect him from."

"Love?" Cisne had all but choked out. "They aren't in love." She couldn't believe that. For so long, he had been hers, the idea that she might lose him to someone ... someone who clearly did not love him the way he deserved to be loved ... did not sit well with her at all.

"And what do you know of mortal love, to make such a statement?"

Cisne had gone quiet then. She supposed she knew nothing of how mortals loved, or felt, or dreamed. But she knew _him_. And she knew herself. And she knew that whatever he felt for this woman, this dark-haired Milah ... it wasn't the love he deserved.

It was all right to want _more_ for him, after all. She'd been with him forever. And she'd be with him forever.

The sound of his soul screaming was piercing, reaching all the way to the bottom of the sea, all the way to the top of the highest mountains in the land ... it woke them all, not just her, though she should have been the only one to hear it. He was _hers_, after all.

It was the sound of her failure, and as she rushed to his side, she realized it was too late. The imp - the Dark One - he saw her there, the spectre at Killian's shoulder, and though he begged for death, the demon refused him even that mercy. It wasn't in the cards for him.

It wasn't in the cards for him, because of _her_.

Never had she felt more like a failure to him. She was doing him no favors. She was there, protecting him, but he didn't want or need her "help".

She had broken the rules, again, after the funeral. He was drunk, but when he looked at her, she had the feeling he was seeing her, clearly. But the look he gave her was cold, bitter and angry, worse even than after his brother had died.

"I'm sorry," she had said, helplessly and stupidly, wishing that she could do so much more, _be _so much more than just mist and air. "I would have done ... something. _Anything_. If I could. But I'm ... I'm not here for her. For any of them. I'm only here for you."

"You're _sorry_?" he spat, the words slurred and broken, and she wished again for arms to _hold him_. That somehow she could show him that all his pain, his suffering, was for some greater, more noble good. That something wonderful was waiting for him.

But she couldn't, because she didn't even believe that herself.

And when the first tears fell from her eyes then, she knew she'd never find out.

_Immortals who shed tears for the lesser among them are no longer higher beings. Sea foam and ocean air become flesh and blood, an immortal life traded for a mortal soul, fragile and weak, and a breath of life breathed into her lungs._

_The seer was tasked with this unhappy deed, and she had done it before. This was what had happened to the others, the ones, who, like Cisne, had become too close to their mortals, but Cisne would not remember that. Nor would she know that the reason these things happened ... had been for something far greater than anything the immortals would ever know, and only a select few among them were strong enough to find it, despite the cost._

_True Love._

_It would be 300 years before her mortal soul would find a vessel._

_A baby girl, a princess, whose own soul was cursed for her crimes of the past. She would call herself Swan, Emma Swan, and she would live a life of pain and loss and abandonment._

_She had been born under the sign of War, after all, along the path of Grief._

_And the only way for her soul to finally find peace, for them both ... would be to find him again. They would not know each other, or know of the bond they inexplicably shared ... but their souls would recognize one another._

_And they will live happily ever after ..._


End file.
